Author: seb174750eastsurreycollege

I’m going to answer 11 questions about secures of inspiration that I’m going to use for my FMP. This will help me come up with a better foundation of an initial idea. Which I can later expand upon. I will also try and tie my research/inspiration around the initial idea so they all have a running theme, and can all connect better.

I – Initial Idea

For my initial idea I want to try and show the youth culture. Displaying life and relationship between people at my age. Showing that transition into teenager to adulthood, and how we have to start maturing. How most people are either getting a job or going onto university.

Films that have inspired me have been Dazed and Confused, short filmed called “Billy Star,” made by the boyband Brockhampton and Breakfast club. However I don’t want mine to have a funny tone, or be a comedy. I want it have comedic elements but have it be more a drama than Breakfast club and Dazed and confused.

N – New – Realism

A new of working that I want to explore would be realism. Wanting my film to be inspired by Italian neo-realism. Having quite a strip back feel and rawness with the film making. Filming mainly on location and having non actors that will try and direct as much as I can. Point and shooting, filming handheld with every little tripods shot.

S – Specialism – Directing

For specialism I have chosen directing. This is because I am most interested in continuing directing after college. I like being involved in all aspects of the film making process. From coming up with an idea in the pre-production to editing in the post production finding the rhythm of the film. However my favourite part of the film making process if I had to chose would be the production side, so I am most likely going to focus on the visual side of my film than anything else.

For inspiration I am going to look at other directing styles and how they make films. Seeing how I can implement this into my film.

P – Person – Kevin Abstract (Ian Simpson)

For person I picked Kevin Abstract. He is a singer/rapper and is currently the founder and lead member of the group Brockhampton. He is also an inspiring director and has directed many short films, whilst also directing all of the group’s music videos. The reason why I picked him is because I am very inspired by him as a person and the songs that he makes.

Due to the fact that in his music he talks about being an teenager and the emotions that comes with that. With also talking about how dreams die young and how you should live out your dreams and not follow the crowd. I feel that this is something that I really want to touch upon with my film, is that dreams die when we are young. And we stop having big ambitions at a certain age. Like displaying how many people go to university without really knowing what they want to do with their life.

I – Image – Boy with Junebug

This photo was taken by Gordon Parks who took a lot of pictures in the 1940s and 1960s. I really like this photo because of the fact of childhood innocence its showing in the frame. Having this at the start of my film I think would be a really good opener of the film. I also really appreciate the string tied around the bug, as I think it’s good to read into the image a lot more.

R – Reading- American Psycho (1991)

For my book I have chose American Psycho. I feel that this is a really interesting, dark twisted story. I really enjoy the main character, as you hate him but in the same breathe love him. I feel that the book also has really good social commentary which I would really like to place and have in my film. Adding a layer of depth to the story telling, improving the film.

A – Artwork – Masks confronting death (1888)

For artwork I have chosen a painting by James Ensor. James Ensor had a running theme in most of his painting, that most of the subjects had masks on. I really like this pantining in particular due to how abstract and surreal it is. I want to try and show this strangeness in my film in some way.

I also really like the painting, as it shows coming to terms with death. Showing that something doesn’t last forever. This again I feel would be an really interesting theme to have running through my film.

T – Technique – Sunlight/lens flares

For my technique I want to try and experiment with sunlight playing a factor in the film. Having lens flares going trees, coming up on the screen. I also want to experiment with low lighting in the sunset and night times. I also want to have shallow focus close up on people’s faces, showing emotion whilst background’s being faded.

For my FMP inspiration I going to look at an creative in the film industry, which I feel that would provide me with a good source of inspiration for style I will be looking for. I will be taking a look at the cinematographer called Emmanuel Lubezki. He has worked on films like Birdman and Revenant.

He has worked on such films as Birdman and Revenant. The reason why I picked to look at him is because of his visual style, having a lot of long takes and having the lights behind play a factor of the look of the film. With also having backgrounds, making sure the actors are better lit making them stand out much more.

I like his use of wide angles for showing information on screen with also having much more depth of the shots. I want to try and use his work as a source of inspiration. As my idea for my FMP will much more striped down, but I feel having this sort of visual style will have the subjects of the frame more interesting and be able to take more of the emotion from the actors faces.

I found a great video of someone talking about his work on youtube, this gave me more information of his work as a cinempahter and how I should go about shooting my film. Whatever my idea is however I want to try and make FMP visuals be inspired by his work.

In this post I will be briefly talking about the New Wave project and evaluating how I felt the project turned out as a whole.

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I feel that the opening scene/intro turned out very well, working well with the New Wave theme. Having the spanish voice over was a good addition, with the black and white visuals.

For the title cards I feel that they could have been improved with maybe a bit more time. However I feel that it’s quite an interesting way of making them, having the old film reel in the background of the the transitions.

In terms of the support group section, I felt that it turned out better than expected. Having a good flow of the scene. I felt that shots of Kira and Ethan talking worked really well. Having good shots and good performances. I feel that this is probably the best thing from the support group scene.

As for the mask hallucinations that we shot I felt these turned out well, even though we only had 10 minutes to film them. This was because our actors had to go at 12, and needed to get ready for their filming. This meant for the whole day we were on a time crunch only having three hours to film everything.

I think to improve on this in the future, make sure we have the actors for a full day or that we shoot on two days different days in we can’t fit everything in at one time. I feel that the pacing of the film losing itself when Joe has the interaction with Conor. As this scene doesn’t flow as well as I hoped. This could have been easily improved with some planning as this is the only part I didn’t plan ahead of time.

Overall I feel that this project was good for experimenting and testing new skills out. It was also good not being afraid to try new things for a change. I feel that even though we haven’t got a perfect film, we have something that’s far more interesting that than. This as well as taking the directing role properly again as I haven’t done that since the TV pilot is good practice for the FMP.

On the Thursday I filmed for Fin’s new wave project. I was the cinematographer on the shoot.

The first day we filmed in the photography room so we could set up the red lights. Fin wanted to go with a horror themed new wave film. So I used a lot of shadows to my advantage with experimenting with the red light. This took most of the day due to the fact that Fin didn’t know exactly what he wanted.

We then also filmed on the second day where we did a corridor tracking shot for the opening scene. This didn’t take much time at all. As this was only two shots in total.

Overall it was nice taking a step back from shooting and just being the camera man, as I just had to make sure that Fin got the shots he wanted, and didn’t have to worry about telling the actors what to do. If I get this opportunity again, I will take it as it was good experience just being a DP.

For this new wave project I’m going to be splitting the film into three chapters, for each one of the small projects we made. However I feel it would be really cool if I made an intro inspired by Soviet Montage. As I haven’t really touched on that before with my filmmaking style.

My idea was to have a voiceover sort of introduce the major themes of the project. These are the lines that I would have my friend be performing:

My name is Roberto, and this is my story.
My addiction is taking over me.
Days turning into a blur.
Looking for an answer, will I find it here?
Most likely not, will it leave me burnt?
Who knows? But whatever it is, it’s better than here.

As you can see I have a spanish version. This is because I wanted to make it more weirder and I thought it would sound better with a spanish voice over the top. I have a friend from secondary school who can speak spanish so he would be the perfect choice. This as well as soviet montage, I have taken influence from a Boy Band Brockhampton. This is because at the start of all their music videos they have the group’s web designer talk at the beginning in spanish. Introducing the song.

I feel like this would be really cool to have the opening speech in spanish with random shots of Redhill, and different faces maybe. This taking influence from Soviet Montage and that earlier style of filmmaking. Using Soviet Montage in this way means that I’m taking lots of different new wave influences for one project.

On Friday we had a production day for the new wave project. We had quite a lot of people on the shoot. Me as the director, Conor and Joe who are in my group helping with the camera work and also acting in it. We also had Max on sound, with Ethan, Dan and Kira for some additional actors.

For the shoot we also put some time into the production design. Displaying the chairs with also having, a sign in the background having the drug support on it. We also got some tea cups and water to have a little table for the support group. We were filming at the college and having the whole scene in the TV studio. This is because we felt that the TV studio would be the perfect place for this type of support group.

We have a very limited time schedule for the shoot, this was because two of our main actors had to go at 12. This meant we had to do a lot of the complex scenes in under three hours. We managed to get everything filmed. However I would of much prefered taking more time with the shots and getting more takes. As I felt we rushed towards the end to get everything done in time.

The dialogue and the shots where nothing happens to do Joe I felt worked fine, however I would of liked to maybe have some more time. The most rushed part was the mask shots, due to the fact that we missed quite a few shots that we needed to make the film work as planned.

Overall the shots looked nice and I feel that we got good performances from the actors. Feeling like we covered everything, but I have a feeling it’s not going to follow as nicely as previously planned. This isn’t too bad however due to the fact that this is a new wave project and its more open to experimentation.

I will be editing the film over the next couple of days.

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